Google and Reddit Lose DMCA Case Against Web Scraper SerpApi
Google and Reddit suffered a legal setback in their attempt to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to block AI web scraping. Google sued SerpApi in December, accusing it of circumventing anti-scraping technology to sell scraped search results via an unauthorized “Google Search API” service. Reddit had filed a similar lawsuit in October against SerpApi and Perplexity. The DMCA claim was unusual because Google search results are not copyrightable. Meredith Rose of Public Knowledge called the strategy “bizarre” but not surprising, noting the DMCA is often used to force licensing discussions. Despite the loss, Google confirmed it will continue fighting AI scraping.
Key facts
- Google sued SerpApi in December under the DMCA.
- Reddit filed a similar lawsuit against SerpApi and Perplexity in October.
- Google accused SerpApi of circumventing anti-scraping tech to sell search results.
- The DMCA claim is unusual because search results are not copyrightable.
- Meredith Rose of Public Knowledge commented on the case.
- Google cited Reddit's lawsuit when announcing its own challenge.
- Google described the lawsuit as a 'last resort' to block 'malicious scraping'.
- Google confirmed it will not give up its fight against AI scraping despite the court loss.
Entities
Institutions
- SerpApi
- Perplexity
- Public Knowledge